Christine Brooke-Rose - The Brooke-Rose Omnibus

Mr. Swaminathan stands hugely in the dusty bathroom, swaying from one foot to another. With one sweep of the hand he wipes the pink marble off the wall to the right of the window. At the gentle pressure of his outspread hand the wall crumbles down in a cloud of dust. The dust fills the head, bombarding the cells that run riot, emit helium particles until the leaden head disintegrates to bismuth, lead, thallium, polonium, bismuth, emanation 222, radium, thorium, uranium, on and on, in a hundred and sixty microseconds, or three million two hundred and thirty one thousand six hundred and forty two years one hundred and seventy three days point nine.

— You know very well that that is not how it occurred. Look around you, does this resemble what you know of prehistory?

— It is pitch-black. There is no mind to perceive it.

— You are perceiving it now, by special licence.

— Ah, but I have a blind spot. It’s not my fault, it’s due to non-existence.

— Don’t boast. We haven’t built you up yet. There will be a period of initiation. You must learn to participate you know. Nothing less than symbiosis will do, a participation so effective that it cannot be imagined, for it is not only pre-logical but pre-mythical and anterior to all collective representations. Now then, merge.

— I suppose you’re marking time really.

— Time, what’s that?

— Time for the black and white image to percolate. We can always add the colours later, as they crop up.

— White? If you can see any white about you’re already hopelessly corrupt. I said anterior to collective representations. Nothing less than symbiosis will do, between the totemic group and the totem. Now then, merge.

— It’s pitch-black.

— That’s better.

— But great white penguins are waddling in. No. They’re crocodiles, white bellied, up on their hind legs, they fill the whole corridor, help, help.

— There you go again with your sick talk. I said anterior to collective representations. What did you say you were, a physicist? You must know very well that the development of phenomena is correlative to that of consciousness. And that therefore the prehistory of the earth as described by modern science was not only never seen, it never occurred.

— But carbon 14 –

— There you go, assuming that the behaviour of particles remained unchanged over aeons. All you’re entitled to assume is that phenomena would have been as now described if they had been seen by people with the same kind of perception as man has evolved only quite recently. A mere few hundred years.

— Help, help! The crocodiles! They’re slimy. They’re crowding in down the corridor on their hind legs. I’m strangling one. I’m strangling the second. I’m strangling the third. The fourth. I’m strangling the fifth. After five is numberlessness. They go into the collective genitive. They crowd in, help, help.

— Merge, you fool, merge.

— Help!

— All right, if you must have your crude symbols and your schematisations, there’s only one way out. You see these cabins along the corridor. They’re for changing. We’ll shepherd the crocodiles into them. That’s it. One by one. You see, they’re quite gentle really.

— The floor’s wet.

— Well of course, this is an indoor swimming-bath. Now you listen to me, there are three floors, we’re in the basement. Above us, people slide in to the swimming-pool from the same level. Above that, there is a gallery, and they dive in. Down here however, we have to go in through these round glass portholes. They’re like submarine escape-hatches, only you can swim straight across the two membranes and up through the water. The process is known as osmosis. It’s quite a long way up, so take a very deep breath, now, come along, don’t be afraid, in you go, merge, in you fool, go on or I’ll have to push you.

— No! No! No!

The ceiling is pink and veined in white, and a long way away. The wall ahead is pink above a glossy and pale orange door. To the immediate right, very close to the eyes is a wall of pink veined marble. The veins are enormous, they leap out like a white network made to catch floating eyes. The wall is not very high, half a metre perhaps or a little more, edged by a two centimetre mud-coloured band where the marble has been removed. To the immediate left, very close to the eyes, is another wall of pink veined marble, half a metre high or a little more, also edged with a mud-coloured band where the marble has been removed. Beyond this low wall, some way away, is a high pink marble wall, joining the pink marble ceiling. Inside the head is a hammer striking at a chisel. The wall beyond the low wall to the right is mud-coloured, with some of the pink stripped off, the frontier between the pink and the mud being straight and vertical half way up the wall, then zig-zagging to the ceiling. The straightness of the line to the floor is an item of returning knowledge, for it cannot be wholly seen from this position. The body lies in the sunken marble bath. Inside the head a hammer is striking at a chisel.

— Oh! I’m sorry, I forgot — good heavens! What a funny place to rest. You look as if you were lying in a coffin. No don’t move, I’m sure you’ve earned your break. I forgot this bathroom was being done, you see. Oh, yes, you’ve done a lot already. Are you alone?

— Erm, yes … yes, ma’am.

— I say, are you all right? You look terribly white.

— I am white.

— Now, now, no inverted snobbery, you know what I meant. Aren’t you … yes, you are, aren’t you … Lilly’s husband?

— Yes, ma’am.

— No, don’t get up. I say, you do look ill. Anything wrong?

— I — erm — I think I must have fainted. The last thing I remember, I was on top of that ladder. Then I was in here. And my head –

— Give me your hand, you’d better sit up. There. Can you try and get to your feet and sit on the edge of the bath? That’s better. I want you to put your head down between your knees. There. No? You feel sick. Yes of course. Look, I’ll sit down here with my feet in the bath and you lie down alongside it with your head on my lap. Stretch your legs out, that’s right. Or raise your knees perhaps, it might be more comfortable on this hard floor. You poor old thing. Just relax. Don’t keep turning your head.

— Mr. Swaminathan –

— Oh don’t worry about him, he’s gone up country to the Farming Estate.

— He has? How long?

— Did you say how long for?

— How long has he been gone?

— I’ve no idea, a week, ten days. How are you feeling?

— Oh, better, much better. If I could, if you don’t mind, just a moment longer –

— Close your eyes then, and relax.

Under the red networks of the eyelids in the sunlight, the dark curves of chin and lips and nose seen from below the breasts that are ensilked in orange fill up the eyespace shimmering with black and yellow and pink. Nevertheless it bears a close resemblance to the real thing, as a mere lifting of the lids can prove and does. The face looks down. The left nostril wears a blue-green stone set in gold. The eyes strike deep, a rich, chromatic chord. The ceiling is pink and veined in white, and a long way away. The wall ahead is pink above and around a glossy and pale orange door. To the immediate right –

— How are you feeling?

The thick lips are unsmiling. The expression is one of concern.

— All right, I think. I’m very sorry. You’ve been so kind. So very kind. Woops. Oh, thank you. It is Mrs. Mgulu, isn’t it?

— The same.

— I don’t know how to thank you. You shouldn’t have — really.

— That’s enough of that. If a person can’t help a fellow-creature in distress, well, where would we all be? But tell me, why did it happen? Was it the sun? It is hot in here I must say. Facing South and under the roof. Why don’t you leave the door open to create a draught?